the Brontë Sisters

This is a blog about the Bronte Sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne. And their father Patrick, their mother Maria and their brother Branwell. About their pets, their friends, the parsonage (their house), Haworth the town in which they lived, the moors they loved so much, the Victorian era in which they lived.

I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.Emily BronteWuthering Heights

donderdag 20 juli 2017

Anne, Charlotte and Emily Bronte – and their brother Branwell – were all born and raised in the Thornton building between 1815 and 1820, before the family moved to Haworth. Now the Market Street property, which has been Emily’s coffee shop delucaboutique since 2014, is being sold. After running it as a successful cafe, owner Marc De Luca has decided to sell the business, due to family commitments.

Since the cafe opened he and his wife Michelle have had two children, and he said they were no longer able to devote enough time to family, Emily’s and their other business, De Luca Hair. He is planning to sell the business and building privately, which he says will help him make sure the building’s future is in safe hands. He has no plans to shut the business before a new buyer is found.
The unassuming terrace property was occupied by the Rev Patrick Bronte during his tenure at Thornton Chapel.

In the years before the coffee shop opened, the future of the building was uncertain – it had been shut for some time and efforts to re-open it as a museum never bore fruit.

Although Emily’s operated as a business, many of the features still remained, and customers could sit in front of the fireplace the siblings were said to have been born in front of. The business has become one of the best rated in the district on TripAdvisor.

Mr De Luca said: “The idea is for someone else to take the business on to take it to the next level. We’re not selling because the business is unsuccessful, we’re just struggling to be able to open more than four days a week because of commitments. When we bought the property and set the business up we didn’t have two young children. Running two businesses is something that requires your full attention. “Whoever buys it has to be the right calibre of person. We don’t want to sell it to a property developer from London. “We live in the village so we still want to make sure any new owner does the best for Thornton. It is a great starting point for anyone who wants to open a business here. Our intention is to keep it open until it is sold. keighleynews/Bronte_birthplace_for_sale

dinsdag 18 juli 2017

18 July 2017 is a special day for literature aficionados across the globe, for it marks the 200th anniversary of the death of perhaps the most beloved writer of them all: Jane Austen.

It was on this day in 1817, in a modest house in Winchester, that Jane drew her last breath aged 41, but in her four decades she had revolutionised the world of writing forever. Jane not only helped secure the popularity of the novel as an art form, often seen as subservient to poetry at the time she wrote her first work, Sense and Sensibility, in 1811, she also paved the way for new generations of women writers who would follow her.

Women like Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and especially the Brontë sisters. Charlotte, Emily and Anne are in the middle of 200th anniversaries of their own, as we remember the bicentenaries of their births in the years 1816 to 1820. Along with Austen they crafted brilliant works of genius that are the equal of any novels written by men, and in the public’s eye the Brontës and Jane have become inextricably linked.

I once asked one of the hard-working guides at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth what question they are asked more than any other. It was ‘Which of the Brontë sisters wrote Pride and Prejudice?’ followed closely by, ‘Is this where Jane Austen wrote her novels?’

It’s easy to see why the four writers should become mixed in the public’s perception. On a superficial level there are some similarities between Jane and the Brontës: Jane was after all an early nineteenth century writer who never married and lived with her family throughout her life. So far, so similar with Anne, Emily and Charlotte (who, admittedly, did marry aged 38, only to succumb to the effects of excessive morning sickness and die less than a year later). In other ways, however, Jane was very different to the Yorkshire triumvirate.

Jane was writing earlier in the century than the Brontës, and in a century that changed so radically as the decades advanced, this made a huge difference. Jane Austen was very much a regency woman, familiar with the values and traditions of the late eighteenth century, whereas the Brontës grew up at the start of Queen Victoria’s reign, and witnessed the huge social impact brought by the industrial revolution in a way that Jane never did. As an example of this, Jane Austen travelled to London from Chawton, in Hampshire, in 1815 by horse drawn carriage. In 1848, Charlotte and Anne Brontë travelled from Keighley to London via train.

The purpose of these two meetings reveals another important difference between Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters: Jane was travelling to meet the Prince Regent, later George IV, who was a huge fan of her work; Charlotte and Anne Brontë were travelling to meet the publisher George Smith, where they would finally reveal their true identity away from the masks of Currer and Acton Bell that they had hidden behind.

Jane Austen’s writing made her famous in her lifetime, a success that Anne and Emily would never know or desire. The Brontë sisters needed money in a way that Jane never did, but they eschewed fame and preferred public anonymity, although after the death of her younger sisters Charlotte did, reluctantly, step into the limelight.

Another important distinction between Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters was their social position. Whilst the Brontës were respectable, thanks to their father Patrick’s position as a long established priest in the Church of England, they were never rich, and were solidly lower middle class, whereas Jane was from an upper middle class background. Her financial position, and her position in society, became even more secure when her brother Edward was adopted by the very wealthy Thomas Knight. Knight had no children of his own, and in 1783 chose his distant relative the 15 year old Edward Austen, afterwards Edward Austen Knight, to be his legal heir. Edward adopted a number of grand properties, including the beautiful Chawton House. He also obtained a nearby property at Chawton for Jane to live in, and it was there that she worked on some of her greatest masterpieces.
The contrast between Jane’s brother Edward and the Brontës’ brother Branwell could not be greater: Branwell seemed to be a promising talent in his own right, but there would be no wealthy patronage for him, and he died at the age of 31 after a long addiction to drink and opium.

Other than their brilliant writing, there is one striking similarity between Jane Austen and the Brontës: sisterly love. Emily and Anne Brontë in particular were very close, being referred to as being like inseparable twins, despite their age difference. A similar relationship existed between Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra, two years older than Jane and always by her side throughout her life.
In the 200 years since her death, Jane Austen’s reputation has grown, but just what did Charlotte Brontë think of her? In fact, Charlotte reported that she had never read Jane Austen’s work until she was urged to by the critic G. H. Lewes. She was far from impressed as we can see from her reply to Lewes:

‘Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point... I had not seen Pride & Prejudice till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book and studied it. And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a common-place face; a carefully-fenced, highly cultivated garden with neat borders and delicate flowers - but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy - no open country - no fresh air - no blue hill - no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses.’

Charlotte’s judgement should be seen in the light of her irritation that Jane Eyre was being compared to Austen novels. It was a fate that befell Anne Brontë’s first novel too, as we see from the following extract from a review: ‘Agnes Grey is a somewhat coarse imitation of one of Miss Austin’s charming stories.’ It’s a pity, of course, that the reviewer hadn’t found the stories so charming that he’d remembered how to spell Miss Austen’s name.

If we take a more dispassionate look than Charlotte did, we simply have to acknowledge that Jane Austen’s books are works of genius just like those of herself and her sisters. One early twentieth century writer, however, thought it was unfair that Anne Bronte in particular was being overlooked in favour of Jane Austen. In 1924, celebrated Irish author George Moore wrote:

‘If Anne Brontë had lived ten years longer, she would have taken a place beside Jane Austen, perhaps even a higher place.’

We can equally lament that Jane Austen did not live another ten years. Her novels will always be read and always be loved. While ever this planet of ours continues its restless orbit around the sun, readers will still swoon over Mr Darcy and root for Emma to find her Knightley. Times will change, but the novels of Jane Austen will remain timeless. On this special day, we should all give a silent thanks to Jane Austen for her novels, and her ground-breaking role in the history of literature.

maandag 10 juli 2017

A year ago, the Brontë Society was riven by discord and in-fighting. But now David Barnett finds that the future is looking brighter in Haworth.
2015 saw a swathe of resignations from the society – Bonnie Greer, then the president, among them – and the following year’s AGM saw scenes of discord never before witnessed, as answers were demanded about just what was going to happen to the venerable society going forward. What happened was Kitty Wright.

“There was perhaps a lack of confidence,” says Wright. “A torpor when it came to planning for the future.” So what did she bring to the party? She smiles. “You might say, an Australian can-do attitude.” Originally from Perth, Western Australia, Wright arrived in Britain in 1999.

“I’m not saying I’m succeeding where others have failed, just that with no-one in this post for 18 months there was something of a leadership vacuum. I suppose if I’ve done anything I’ve tried to create a climate of permission, of optimism and energy.”

She is constantly talking about the hard work of the core management and administration team that is based with her in a few rooms at the back of the parsonage – even as executive director, she shares her office with three other people – and bursts with almost visible pride at the work they do there.

Last week the Brontë Society was named as a new member of a rather exclusive club when it became one of the Arts Council’s National Portfolio Organisations. What this means in real terms is funding of £930,000 over the next four years. Wright was the one who put in the bid, and there are big plans for the money.

The parsonage already attracts international visitors – a group of Japanese tourists are browsing the exhibits while I’m there – but Wright wants to get the word out with a much stronger online presence. She has a vision of an “augmented reality” website, digital maps, digitised texts from the stock of exhibits: in essence, making their online presence an extension of the physical museum rather than, as Wright calls it, “just an electronic brochure”.

Partnerships with other bodies and organisations to encourage more engagement from under-represented demographics is key to the five-year plan of the Brontë Society – be that schools, higher education establishments, or groups working with black and ethnic minority communities.
And there’s also a bricks-and-mortar aspect to the proposals. Wright looks out of her office window and points to a meadow, beyond the trees that border the the parsonage grounds.

“Up there is an underground reservoir,” she says. “It was fed by springs and was built after Patrick Brontë’s work on improving the sanitation in Haworth. We’re hoping to launch a fundraising campaign next year to create a centre for contemporary women’s writing there, a flexible space that could host events, exhibitions, be hired by creative people who want to write, hold classes…”
It’s an ambitious project, Wright knows – it’ll cost between £2.5 and £3m, depending on how easy or difficult it is to run utilities up to it, and that’s without taking into account actually getting planning permission… and what the rest of the members of the Brontë Society think about building on the land.

There’s another plan as well, which she says is merely “a glint in our eyes”. “Did you see To Walk Invisible? There was a barn in that, that used to stand just outside the parsonage. It would be fantastic to recreate that, make it a curatorial and research space, with an interpretive exhibition, perhaps…”
Read all the article: independent/bront-society-bicentenary-charlotte-haworth-kitty-wright-

woensdag 28 juni 2017

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Anne (living in the USA) from the blog Stay at Home Artist. This year she visited Haworth for the second time. She told me that she went to Leeds University.She saw 6 of Charlotte's
letters to Amelia Taylor (in a beautiful book).

I searched for this university and found a lot of interesting information.

For instance:

The letters of Branwell Brontë

This resource provides searchable transcriptions of the letters of Branwell Bronte (1817-1848) kept in Special Collections at the University of Leeds Library.

Patrick Branwell Brontë was the younger brother of the Brontë sisters. His life has been infamously documented as one of alcoholism, debt and longing for a married woman called Lydia Robinson, with whom he supposedly had an affair. Much of the evidence for this comes from letters written by the Brontës, including these letters written by Branwell himself.

Transcriptions were made by volunteers working on a crowd sourced transcription project in 2015.

Haworth nr BradfordMay 15th1842.Resurgam

Dear Sir,

I have received great pleasure from the
examination of the three Drawings which you put
in to the hands of Mr J. Brown, and it appears
to me that the Design at £40. No. 2. has
received the greatest approbation from the Committee
appointed to carry into effect the erection of a
monument to the late Mr Andrews

If you could come over to Haworth on
the Afternoon of Friday May 20th ; during
the evening of which day the Committee will sit,
they will be able to speak more distinctly
to you than I have power to do - and I am sure
my Father would be pleased to see you if you can
make it convenient to visit us before the meeting.

Mr Brown will be thankful for any instruct
-ions you may be pleased to give him, and as he
expects an order for two more monuments - of course
through your hands - he will be thankful for some

information respecting the best method of colouring
letters Sunk in marble tablets.

Excuse the extreme illegibility of this scrawl
as I am scarcely hoping recovering from severe in-
disposition, and, with a hope to see you on Frid-
-ay,

Believe me,

Dear Sir,

yours most respectfully,

P.B. Bronte

P.S.

I should feel obliged by knowing per return
of post whether it will be in your power to come
over on the day mentioned above, or not.

[A sketch of a tombstone with the word RESURGAM on it. The initials P.B.B. are in the foreground. ]

A final substantial collection of letters from Charlotte's husband, the Revd A. B. Nicholls, rounds off the biographical material (Nicholls' hand-copied collection of his wife's poems is included too). The account to Ellen Nussey of Charlotte's final illness, associated, it now seems, with pregnancy, is remarkably reserved; Nicholls retains his formal composure throughout even when commemorating, on 14 February 1855, his just departed wife: she was 'as good as she was gifted'.library.leeds/revd_arthur_bell_nicholls

Brontë Treasures In The Ellen Nussey Archive

And here the wonderful story of Nick Holland

The Brotherton Library Special Collections room houses many old and valuable manuscripts, but there was one set in particular I was looking for: referenced ‘BC MS 19thC Brontë/07’ it is the Ellen Nussey archives. Collated inside the pages of a leather bound book are hand written letters and extracts written by Charlotte Brontë’s best friend Ellen Nussey, and they give startling insights into the Brontë sisters as a whole.Read all: annebronte/bronte-treasures-in-the-ellen-nussey-archive/

dinsdag 27 juni 2017

I hardly believe it. My blog about the Bronte Sisters reached more then 1.000.000 pageviews. When I started it was for myself. I wanted to collect information. After a while I realised that people were interested. Through the time I met some very nice Bronte lovers. Paula and Kirsten from Holland. Anne and Jessica from the USA. Lynn, Nick and others from the United Kingdom. George from France with his big love for Emily.

We remember him as the failure of the family. Despite being a passionate poet, writer and artist, he failed to hold down conventional jobs, and repeatedly succumbed to vice. Finally, his world fell apart after the end of an affair with a married woman, Lydia Gisborne, which accelerated his dependence on opiates and alcohol. He died at the young age of 31 from the long-term effects of substance abuse.

The poet Simon Armitage is the museum’s creative partner for this bicentenary, curating an exhibition that pairs his own poetry with objects owned by Branwell; inviting us to reflect on the workings of his mind and our relationship with this problematic fellow. At the heart of the exhibition is a letter to the Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Branwell, then a earnest 19-year-old, encloses one of his own poems, and expresses his hopes and dreams of building “mansions in the sky”.

Wordsworth never replied.

Life threw repeated punches at Branwell, but within this series of unfortunate events there was happiness and worth. We must not forget that the Brontë brother grew up in the same literature-charged environment as his three siblings. For much of their young lives, they collaborated on fantasy sagas as complex as our modern-day Game of Thrones. Set in the worlds of Glass Town and Angria, the siblings wrote the tales in tiny books and acted them out together. But Branwell was at the centre of this universe, often dictating the events of the saga or writing long parliamentary speeches and war epics. As Armitage says: “He was driving the whole show. He had this flurried imagination and they seemed to be wildly encouraging of each other.” Read more: theguardian

vrijdag 9 juni 2017

In 1852 Mrs Gaskell wrote in her letters about the vegetables that were growing in the garden. In another letter she tells of being given rhubarb, though whether she meant rhubarb stalks for cooking or a root of rhubarb for growing, is not clear. I suspect it was a root. The part of the garden in which vegetables are likely to have been grown, is no more. There is a block of flats on the site. Also lost is the paddock in which, we can speculate, the cow and chickens were kept and the pigsty was situated. However, it was important to represent the productive side of the garden. Mrs Gaskell’s letters show that she took great pleasure in the vegetables that were grown in the garden and described herself planting cabbages among other garden tasks.

Consequently a small vegetable bed has been established at the end of the pergola and a fruit bed created against the rear wall. Mrs Gaskell is very unlikely to have had a vegetable bed so visible from the living and dining room. But then the garden as it is currently maintained is not a re-creation but more of an evocation of her life and works and it was important that we included some reference to the practical side of the mid-19th century garden.
Apart from perennial herbs, there is currently little to see in the vegetable bed which has recently been dug over, but it will be planted up with beans whose flowers compliment the roses on the pergola along with other vegetables. In past years we have grown coloured chard and cabbages, parsnips and leeks.

We do use “heritage” seeds and plants when these are available and in 2015 a “heritage” pumpkin seed produced the most abundant crop. The plants romped across the fruit bed and even started climbing the walls. We had pumpkins for Halloween, and enough for staff and volunteers to make pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie.

There must be something in the soil or the situation of the fruit bed. An alpine strawberry that was planted as an attractive edging to the bed, spread itself abundantly across the whole bed last year, way beyond its remit! The fruit-bed is now the home of the more sedentary gooseberry and currant bushes. Again we have used older varieties such as Lancashire Lad. Against the wall are apple and pear trees, trained as espalier plants. We have used varieties such as Doyenne de Comise and Duke of Devonshire.
Chris Tucker elizabethgaskellhouse

zaterdag 3 juni 2017

It’s all too easy to walk past the bronze plaque on ‘Bozar’ commemorating Charlotte and Emily’s stay in Brussels in 1842-43, as it’s placed rather high on the building. Bozar. stands on the site of the Pensionnat Heger (demolished in 1909) where the sisters stayed while in Brussels. The plaque is on Rue Baron Horta/Baron Hortastraat, to the left of the main entrance to Bozar. Added to its lack of visibility, until a couple of weeks ago the Brontë plaque was looking sorry for itself under the grime deposited by air pollution.

It now has a brighter look after a spring cleaning. On 2 May it was restored – cleaned, polished and lacquered). The work, which took the best part of a day, was commissioned by the Brontë Society, based in Haworth, Yorkshire, with help from the Brussels Brontë Group. The Society plans to have regular maintenance of the plaque done from now on.
Read all: brusselsbronte

zaterdag 13 mei 2017

April advanced to May: a bright serene May it was; days of blue sky, placid sunshine, and soft western or southern gales filled up its duration. And now vegetation matured with vigour; Lowood shook loose its tresses; it became all green, all flowery; its great elm, ash, and oak skeletons were restored to majestic life; woodland plants sprang up profusely in its recesses; unnumbered varieties of

moss filled its hollows, and it made a strange ground-sunshine out of the wealth of its wild primrose plants: I have seen their pale gold gleam in overshadowed spots like scatterings of the sweetest

lustre. All this I enjoyed often and fully, free, unwatched, and almost alone: for this unwonted liberty and pleasure there was a cause, to which it now becomes my task to advert. Have I not described a pleasant site for a dwelling, when I speak of it as bosomed in hill and wood, and rising from the verge of a stream? Assuredly, pleasant enough: but whether healthy or not is another question.

While the Parsonage have planned events throughout the year for all the family, it’s fair to say their crowning glory is the re-creation of Branwell’s bedroom. What was once simply a room to feature portraits painted by Branwell, has been transformed into a cave of chaos and creativity, with stacks of books stashed away in corners of the room, scrunched up pieces of paper with half-baked ideas, ink bottles on the floor, staining the carpet. Paints, brushes, and sketches you can hardly see because the room is so dimly lit. You really get a stark impression of Branwell’s mentality, desperate to succeed in some creative outlet, growing increasingly desperate and despondent as time goes on.
Read and see all: ashleylianne./mansions-in-the-sky-celebrating

Note: There seem to be a number of slightly different versions of this and many of Emily Brontë’s poems, with different line breaks, for example. I’m working from the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets edition, in which the punctuation seems more minimal than in other editions. I did conduct some research but can’t ascertain which is truest to Brontë’s originals.

‘We've got a house...it certainly is a beauty...I must try and make the house give as much pleasure to others as I can.’ Elizabeth Gaskell, in a letter to her friend Eliza Fox in 1850.

Welcome to 84 PLymouth Grove, Manchester. For over 150 years, this house has been associated with its most famous resident: the novelist, Elizabeth Gaskell, who lived here from 1850 to 1865.
The House, now a Grade II listed property, was built between 1835-1841 on the outer edge of the growing city. It was built as part of a new suburban development planned by Richard Lane and is a rare example of the elegant Regency-style villas once popular in Manchester. Thanks to a major £2.5m project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and others, the restored House is fully open to the public for the first time.

During the time Elizabeth lived here she wrote nearly all of her famous novels, including Cranford, Ruth, North and South and Wives and Daughters. She also wrote the biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë, plus many lively letters.

Notable visitors to the House included fellow writers Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, John Ruskin, the American abolitionist and novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe and musician Charles Hallé.
William and his two unmarried daughters, Meta and Julia, continued to live in the house after Elizabeth’s death in 1865. When Meta died in 1913 the house and its contents were sold.elizabethgaskellhouse

Parsonage

Charlotte Bronte

Presently the door opened, and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old gentleman very like Miss Bronte, who shook hands with us, and then went to call his daughter. A long interval, during which we coaxed the old dog, and looked at a picture of Miss Bronte, by Richmond, the solitary ornament of the room, looking strangely out of place on the bare walls, and at the books on the little shelves, most of them evidently the gift of the authors since Miss Bronte's celebrity. Presently she came in, and welcomed us very kindly, and took me upstairs to take off my bonnet, and herself brought me water and towels. The uncarpeted stone stairs and floors, the old drawers propped on wood, were all scrupulously clean and neat. When we went into the parlour again, we began talking very comfortably, when the door opened and Mr. Bronte looked in; seeing his daughter there, I suppose he thought it was all right, and he retreated to his study on the opposite side of the passage; presently emerging again to bring W---- a country newspaper. This was his last appearance till we went. Miss Bronte spoke with the greatest warmth of Miss Martineau, and of the good she had gained from her. Well! we talked about various things; the character of the people, - about her solitude, etc., till she left the room to help about dinner, I suppose, for she did not return for an age. The old dog had vanished; a fat curly-haired dog honoured us with his company for some time, but finally manifested a wish to get out, so we were left alone. At last she returned, followed by the maid and dinner, which made us all more comfortable; and we had some very pleasant conversation, in the midst of which time passed quicker than we supposed, for at last W---- found that it was half-past three, and we had fourteen or fifteen miles before us. So we hurried off, having obtained from her a promise to pay us a visit in the spring... ------------------- "She cannot see well, and does little beside knitting. The way she weakened her eyesight was this: When she was sixteen or seventeen, she wanted much to draw; and she copied nimini-pimini copper-plate engravings out of annuals, ('stippling,' don't the artists call it?) every little point put in, till at the end of six months she had produced an exquisitely faithful copy of the engraving. She wanted to learn to express her ideas by drawing. After she had tried to draw stories, and not succeeded, she took the better mode of writing; but in so small a hand, that it is almost impossible to decipher what she wrote at this time.

I asked her whether she had ever taken opium, as the description given of its effects in Villette was so exactly like what I had experienced, - vivid and exaggerated presence of objects, of which the outlines were indistinct, or lost in golden mist, etc. She replied, that she had never, to her knowledge, taken a grain of it in any shape, but that she had followed the process she always adopted when she had to describe anything which had not fallen within her own experience; she had thought intently on it for many and many a night before falling to sleep, - wondering what it was like, or how it would be, - till at length, sometimes after the progress of her story had been arrested at this one point for weeks, she wakened up in the morning with all clear before her, as if she had in reality gone through the experience, and then could describe it, word for word, as it had happened. I cannot account for this psychologically; I only am sure that it was so, because she said it. ----------------------She thought much of her duty, and had loftier and clearer notions of it than most people, and held fast to them with more success. It was done, it seems to me, with much more difficulty than people have of stronger nerves, and better fortunes. All her life was but labour and pain; and she never threw down the burden for the sake of present pleasure. I don't know what use you can make of all I have said. I have written it with the strong desire to obtain appreciation for her. Yet, what does it matter? She herself appealed to the world's judgement for her use of some of the faculties she had, - not the best, - but still the only ones she could turn to strangers' benefit. They heartily, greedily enjoyed the fruits of her labours, and then found out she was much to be blamed for possessing such faculties. Why ask for a judgement on her from such a world?" elizabeth gaskell/charlotte bronte

Poem: No coward soul is mine

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the worlds storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heavens glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.O God within my breast.
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life -- that in me has rest,
As I -- Undying Life -- have power in Thee!Vain are the thousand creeds That move mens hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast Rock of immortality.

Family tree

Grandparents - paternalHugh Brunty was born 1755 and died circa 1808. He married Eleanor McClory, known as Alice in 1776.

Grandparents - maternalThomas Branwell (born 1746 died 5th April 1808) was married in 1768 to Anne Carne (baptised 27th April 1744 and died 19th December 1809).

ParentsFather was Patrick Bronte, the eldest of 10 children born to Hugh Brunty and Eleanor (Alice) McClory. He was born 17th March 1777 and died on 7th June 1861. Mother was Maria Branwell, who was born on 15th April 1783 and died on 15th September 1821.

Maria had a sister, Elizabeth who was known as Aunt Branwell. She was born in 1776 and died on 29th October 1842.

Patrick Bronte married Maria Branwell on 29th December 1812.

The Bronte ChildrenPatrick and Maria Bronte had six children.The first child was Maria, who was born in 1814 and died on 6th June 1825.The second daughter, Elizabeth was born on 8th February 1815 and died shortly after Maria on 15th June 1825. Charlotte was the third daughter, born on 21st April 1816.

Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls (born 1818) on 29th June 1854. Charlotte died on 31st March 1855. Arthur lived until 2nd December 1906.

The first and only son born to Patrick and Maria was Patrick Branwell, who was born on 26th June 1817 and died on 24th September 1848.

Emily Jane, the fourth daughter was born on 30th July 1818 and died on 19th December 1848.

The sixth and last child was Anne, born on 17th January 1820 who died on 28th May 1849.

Aanbevolen post

National Portrait Gallery There are two official portraits of the Bronte Sisters. Both painted by their brother Branwell Bront...

Question......

If you have information about the Bronte Sisters, please let me know. Maybe you know an article in a newspaper, a book or a website or something else. I am also interested in Haworth.Old cards, maps, photographes.

If you have a weblog, or you know one, with information and/or pictures about Yorkshire, Haworth, the Haworth parsonage, the Brontes, and so on, please, will you let me know?

If you have a subject concerning the Brontes and you want to be a guest blogger, please let me know mefta001@gmail.com

Emily in her diary: 'Anne and I have been peeling apples for Charlotte to make an apple pudding . . . Charlotte said she made puddings perfectly, and she was of a quick but limited intellect. Taby said just now "come Anne pillopuate" (i.e. peel a potato). Aunt has come into the kitchen just now and said "Where are your feet Anne?". Anne answered "On the floor Aunt". . . '

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"My sister Emily loved the moors. Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her; - out of a sullen hollow in a livid hill-side, her mind could make an Eden. She found in the bleak solitude many and dear delights; and not the least and best-loved was - liberty.

There is a spot, 'mid barren hills,where winter howls, and driving rain;But, if the dreary tempest chills,There is a light that warms again.

The house is old, the trees are bare,Moonless above bends twilight's dome;But what on earth is half so dear— So longed for—as the hearth of home?

Horoscopes of Emily and Charlotte

I accidentally lighted on a manuscript volume of verse in my sister Emily’s handwriting. Of course, I was not surprised knowing that she could and did write verses. I had a deep conviction that they were not common effusions; not at all like the poetry women generally write. To my ear they had a music, wild, melancholy, elevating. (Currer Bell, “Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell,” 19 September 1850)

I know of no woman who ever lived who wrote such poetry before. Condensed energy, clearness, finish—strange, strong pathos are their characteristics; utterly different from the usual diffusiveness; the laboured yet most feeble wordiness, which dilutes the writing of even the most popular poetesses. That is my
deliberate and quite impartial opinion. Of its startling excellence I am deeply convinced and have been from the first moment. The pieces are short but they are very genuine; they stirred the heart like the sound of a trumpet when I read them alone and in secret.…

It took hours to reconcile her to the discovery I had made and days to persuade her that such poems merited publication. But I knew that a mind like hers could not be without some spark of honourable ambition and refused to be discouraged in my attempt to fan the flame. By dint of entreaty and reason, I at last wrung out
a reluctant consent. (Letter to Mr. Williams, 1845)
emily-bronte

On 04-04-1855 Charlotte Bronte was buried in the family vault at Haworth Parish Church. On Easter Sunday, 1st April, 1855, many people w...

Why do I keep this weblog?

As a young girl I read Jane Eyre. I loved it. From that moment I wanted to know everything about the Bronte Sisters, their father Patrick, their brother Branwell, Tabby the housekeeper, Keeper and Flossy, two of the many pets they had. Much is known about their lives. Charlotte Bronte wrote many letters. And since just after her death was a biography written by Elizabeth Gaskell, a friend of Charlotte. They lived in Haworth in Great Britain. Their house is now the Bronte Parsonage Museum. When they were children they wrote stories in tiny books, which you can view in the museum. Branwell and Charlotte created "Angria" and Anne and Emily "Gondal". Emily wrote beautiful poetry. No coward soul is mine No trembler in the world's troubles storm-sphere: I see Heavens Glory shine, And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.On the internet, in books and movies is so much information that I was overwhelmed, but now Blogger, offers me the opportunity on this blog to create order..